Ad Hoc Channels, for Impromptu Group Conversations

ZelloWork Channels are great for push-to-talk (PTT) communications between members of the same departments or levels of staff within your company. They are permanent, and user settings are easily managed from the admin console, which makes them great for day-to-day communications.

But sometimes you just need to chat with a few people or people that are outside your normal channels. Or you may need to connect with certain people urgently for an unplanned event. Our new Ad Hoc Channels feature addresses these needs quickly and easily.

Ad Hoc Channels are channels-on-the-fly which allow you to create temporary group conversations between contacts selected from your Recents or Contacts list.

For example, let’s assume you manage hotel security and normally only speak with security personnel on a Security channel. While on rounds, you find a room that has been broken into but also needs to be cleaned immediately. With Ad Hoc Channels, you can quickly set up a conversation with your lock technician and someone in housekeeping to coordinate and handle the situation quickly and efficiently. In this way, Ad Hoc Channels makes it easy to connect with just the right people, in the moment.

After the group conversation is over, the Ad Hoc Channel goes away. Participants can then delete the Ad Hoc Channel from their Recents list or leave it intact for future use. Administrators can assign Ad Hoc Channel privileges to certain users, or turn the feature off entirely.

The Ad Hoc feature is a free upgrade for ZelloWork customers. If you have an existing ZelloWork network, you will need to turn the feature on from the admin console. All participating users must be running Android app version 3.71+ or iOS app version 3.38+ in order to use the feature. New networks will have the feature turned on by default, but it can be disabled from the admin console.

For steps on how to use Ad Hoc Channels and enhance your ZelloWork push-to-talk capabilities, please see our Support FAQ.